x% Het ?

[JibbaJabba]

I would word it differently and call it a "Lesser, 100% het albino". All lessers are hets for the lesser mutation (i.e. they have a mismatched pair of genes at that location, the definition of heterozygous) but since they are visual hets it doesn't make since to apply a % after they hatch. But still best to be explicit on what the "het" part of the name goes with.

Cheers

[angllady2]

As best I can figure this out, an albino bred to a normal, for example, all the babies will be normal 100% het albino. Meaning all the babies for sure carry the albino gene.

If you buy a snake from a reputable breeder as 100% het albino, and breed that snake to a normal, only statistically half of the babies can carry the albino gene, hence the term 50% het. It does mean the baby has a 50% chance of being het, and a 50% chance of being only normal.

If you purchase two 100% het albinos and breed them together. Statistically 1 in four babies will be albino, the other three could be het to albino. Since you have no way of telling hets from normals, you say those three babies are 66% het for albino. I think that statistically, two of the three should be hets, and that's where the 66% comes from, a two-thirds chance of being het.

Gale

[JibbaJabba]

As best I can figure this out, an albino bred to a normal, for example, all the babies will be normal 100% het albino. Meaning all the babies for sure carry the albino gene.

If you buy a snake from a reputable breeder as 100% het albino, and breed that snake to a normal, only statistically half of the babies can carry the albino gene, hence the term 50% het. It does mean the baby has a 50% chance of being het, and a 50% chance of being only normal.

If you purchase two 100% het albinos and breed them together. Statistically 1 in four babies will be albino, the other three could be het to albino. Since you have no way of telling hets from normals, you say those three babies are 66% het for albino. I think that statistically, two of the three should be hets, and that's where the 66% comes from, a two-thirds chance of being het.

Gale

That answers my next question

[Serpent_Nirvana]

angllady2 gave a good explanation

Where it starts to get really hairy is if you then breed one of those possible hets to a normal ... Some people will label them "33% possible het" or "25% possible het," or even just call them "very low percentage hets, which I think confuses people.

These animals do still have a possibility of being het for the gene in question, though that possibility will disappear completely if the possible het parent is proven not to carry the gene later on. Similarly, if the possible het parent proves to be a het, the "low percentage het" then becomes a "50% possible het" as you now know that the one parent did carry the gene, but you still can't guarantee that the baby did get it.

What frustrates me to no end about possible/probable hets is that a lot of people leave off the "possible" or "probable" and just write "50% het albino." That's fine if you know what it means, but I think it adds to the confusion. I've heard a LOT of people get very confused about the "% het" thing, thinking that it means that the snake will produce 50% albinos if bred to XYZ, or that a 33% het albino would produce an albino only if you bred her 33 times ... All completely wrong.

All it is is a statistical probability.